RoboTech: Pipe Builder

Updated prototype configuration with climbing module and integrated arm.

Snapshot

• Focus: Mechanical design, fabrication, and integration
• Date: January 2026
• Duration: 36 hours
• Team: Dennis Roman, Noah Veron, Krish Shajpaul, Nayan Ramam
• Outcome: 2nd place in teleoperated track

This page reflects my primary contribution area: mechanical architecture, rapid part design, print-ready iteration, and physical integration.

Mission and concept

• Hackathon challenge: robot concept for future off-planet settlement support.
• Proposed system: clamp to an existing pipe, grab new segments, place, then climb and repeat.
• Why this concept: modular utility networks + repeatable teleop sequence under tight time constraints.

What I owned (mechanical)

• Structural concept for the climbing/placement mechanism.
• Fast CAD iteration to maintain manufacturable geometry under deadline pressure.
• Print-ready part updates and assembly-fit corrections during integration.
• Packaging decisions to keep manipulator travel, alignment, and serviceability practical.

Build execution in 36 hours

• Full scratch build: no prior CAD, no reused mechanism baseline.
• Parallelized work: mechanism, electronics, and controls progressed at the same time.
• End-to-end teleop stacking flow demonstrated.
• Vertical climb was blocked in the final run by a failed voltage regulator.

Results and engineering takeaways

• Competition result: 2nd place (teleoperated category).
• Reliable subsystems: alignment behavior, manipulator reachability, and operator flow.
• Main blocker in finals: power-stage reliability under full-load demo conditions.
• Key lesson: robust power hardware is a hard requirement for validating mechanical capability.

Next mechanical iteration

• Replace regulator stage with protected power distribution and redundancy.
• Add curved-pipe traversal.
• Add a pipe-locking feature to secure assembled segments.

Link

• Devpost: Orbitron Overloads